Cadieux. Sculptor. Woodcarver. Montreal, Quebec. Active mid 20th century.
Cadieux (the first name is unknown) made primitive carvings of birds. He always painted them and sometimes signed with an ink stamp that said simply: ‘Cadieux – Sculpteur – Montreal’. I know little else about this artist for certain except that he was active 1950’s – 1960’s. I have found his birds over the years at various markets in the Montreal area – a few signed with the stamp – most not. All in paint with some mounted on a base and some not mounted – merely having a single hole where a base may have been attached. One of the examples shown has two legs and another slightly different carving has a single metal leg. They all appear to date from the middle of the 20th century. Above all they are very fine examples of primitive bird sculpture.*
Some examples of the work of Cadieux. Two painted Birds:
A pair of birds by Cadieux, Montreal.
A single bird by Cadieux:**
Bird Carving by Cadieux.
The Mark:**
Cadieux Mark
*For a while I thought that they were the work of Emile Bluteau. He brought a few to me when he was picking in the 1970’s. He strongly denied making them and told me they were the work of a carver who made bird houses and decorated them with these bird carvings. Pickers would remove the birds to sell and dump the ‘Bird” houses because they were too big and were only called bird houses because they were full of these carved birds. If this story is true then those ‘Bird’ houses must have been quite a sight. I have learned over the years to be wary of yarns by pickers but I must say that Emile Bluteau usually let you know when he was pulling your leg.
** From: https://shadflyguy.com/tag/folk-art-animals/page/2/
